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2016 MAC Football Recruiting Roundup: Bowling Green set the tone this week, how did the rest of the MAC fare?

With camp season fast approaching, the recruiting trail is starting to heat up.

By Mike Karpinski

Summer is an exciting time for many recruits as most programs across the country hold camps for recruits to showcase their skills. Many recruits rely on these camps for exposure as well as offers. We'll see many recruits go from having a few MAC offers to multiple P5 offers after having a big summer at various camps. It's just something that happens every year. With that said, let's get into the week that was on the MAC recruiting trail.

Ball State landed a commitment from bulky offensive lineman, Anthony Todd, who happens to be close friends with 2015 signee, 3-star QB Riley Neal. Fun fact: Todd also plays on the baseball team for Yorktown who just recently won the Sectional championship.

Bowling Green remained one of the most active teams in the MAC this week, landing DB Jerry McBride and DE Dirion Hutchins this week. McBride projects to play safety for the Falcons, while Hutchins seems to be a nice fit on the edge for the Falcon's 4-3 defense.

Current Falcons commit RB Terence Stephens received an offer from Kent State this week, his 2nd offer. It will be interesting to see if Stephens sticks to his word or decides to explore his options over time.

This past week, there was a lot of talk on Twitter about which football programs had the luxury of being near a Chipotle. BG coach Andy Sowder cleared things up for everyone with this tweet.

A lot of talk on internet about proximity to Chipotle on college campuses. Not sure if it gets any closer than this pic.twitter.com/0o6LFH9XaW

— Andrew Sowder(@CoachAndySowder) June 1, 2015

Now we all know the real reason why BG has been tearing it up on the recruiting trail lately.

3-star DB Stefan Claiborne announced his de-commitment from Western Michigan this week. Over the summer, he plans to camp at Georgia, Michigan State, Ohio State, Pittsburgh, Tennessee, and West Virginia. Claiborne is a big loss to this class, however the Broncos rebounded almost immediately with the commitment of 2-star OL Jordan Asbury. Asbury held a Northwestern offer at one point, however shortly after offering Asbury Northwestern quickly received two commitments from other offensive lineman thus leaving no open spots for him. After falling on some hard luck, the Broncos were able to bounce back with some good fortune in landing Asbury just hours after losing one of their most prized recruits.

The Broncos ended the week with a bang by earning the verbal commitment of 3-star OL Spencer Kanz. Kanz has the makeup of a guy who will be a reliable offensive lineman during his time at WMU. His commitment provides WMU with the recruiting momentum that they needed and one certain recruiting service has taken notice.

#WesternMichigan has the No. 27 ranked recruiting class in the country according to @247Sports: http://t.co/fqboudixlE #RTB

— Steve Wiltfong(@SWiltfong247) June 6, 2015

Although EMU still has zero commits for the class of 2016, they are offering some talented recruits. One of those recruits is DT Cameron Tidd. Tidd is known for his run-stopping abilities and currently lists an offer from Vanderbilt. Some may say there's no way the Eagles can compete with the Commodores, however don't count out the recruiting abilities of coach Creighton and his staff. They put together a solid 2015 class and I fully expect them to do the same for 2016.

The interior line seems to be a priority for the Eagles in 2016 as they are also recruiting 3-star DT Leon Page very hard. Page currently lists offers from Miami, Bowling Green, Buffalo, Ball State, CMU, and EMU. It's rather enjoyable to see recruits post some of the letters they get from colleges, and I think this is a great letter/graphic below. Page himself also seemed rather impressed with it.

One of the most talented players from the state of Michigan released his list of top 3 schools this week. 3-star LB Eric Rogers currently lists NIU, Toledo, and Boston College in his top 3. Although this list could change as more Power 5 teams inevitably offer Rogers, don't count out NIU or Toledo. Rogers seems to be high on both programs, especially Toledo as they were the first school to offer him a while back. The Huskies just offered Rogers earlier this week, and after this season NIU's depth chart is pretty favorable for a guy like Rogers as far as playing time is concerned.

Speaking of lists, recent Kent State de-commit ATH Tyrece Speaight recently announced his current list of top 3 schools.

The 3-star ATH seems to be looking at schools closer to home and would certainly be a great pickup for Toledo or Miami. Speaight has the talent to attend a P5 school so it will be interesting to see how his recruitment develops as the summer progresses.

The Rockets landed 3-star ATH James Jackson out of Pennsylvania. Jackson is a huge get for the Rockets and is capable of playing QB, WR, and S. Although I think he projects to play wide receiver at the next level, Jackson is more than capable to play quarterback as well. With eight commits to date, the Rockets are building a class that can give WMU a run for their money this year.

In stranger news, UMass offered current Miami (FL) commit LB/DB Devin Gil this week. Maybe the UMass staff knows something that we don't and is under the impression that Gil could flip his commitment. Gil's flip is a realistic possibility as he plans to take an unofficial visit to Michigan in about a week. Gil committed a while back and has still received multiple offers since then so his recruitment still is very much open, however I would be very surprised if he flipped to UMass or anywhere in the MAC for that matter (Ohio offered two weeks ago).

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